London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · October 30th 16, 12:45 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (tim...)
wrote:

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 09:44:54 on Sat, 29 Oct
2016, tim... remarked:

Uber, on the other hand, have stuck their head in the sand and said
the ruling only applies to the two drivers who brought the case.

And they wonder why people think so little of their practices.

Tis the typical response from any company who have just lost at an ET

They just need a holding position whilst they get their lawyers to look
at it to see what is the basis for an appeal.

And whilst I don't like Uber's MO from a competition POV, looking down
the list of reasons why the tribunal ruled that the drivers are workers
the only ones that seem to me to be an unreasonable practice is that of
not telling divers where the pick up wants to go to and penalising
drivers for not accepting pick ups.

The rest don't seem the slightest bit unreasonable IMHO

Isn't it about lawfulness, rather than reasonableness?

But all the stuff in the press (well on the TV) has been union officials
crowing about how this will stop employers exploiting employees

And in this particular case, I can't see that there's any exploitation
at all

I repeat what I, sort of, said before. The taxi cab model only works if
drivers are SE.

Anything else leads either to no taxi cabs at all. Or a luxury-style
limousine service only

I too think the drivers are asking too much for some of the things
like holiday pay, although this is in danger of getting into a
wider debate about "zero-hours" contracts.

Holiday pay is pretty well mandatory in any employment. For the last year my
wife has had a zero-hours contract. All her paid hours had a holiday pay
supplement. She's on a proper full-time contract from next month now anyway.

They weren't asking for any specific set of things

they just wanted to be classed as "workers" so that they could claim
minimum wage for all of the hours that they spent sitting in a cab
"waiting" for a ride.

All the rest came along in the bundle.

And if they think that the MO of paying drivers for sitting around
waiting for a ride is sustainable they are idiots (well, they are cab
drivers so that isn't an unlikely possibility).

All that it will result in is them not being able to log on for work
during slack hours and, instead of getting 4 pounds an hour from
those hours they will get nothing. (And bearing in mind that the 4
pounds is after they have paid for some of the fixed costs of owing a
car, costs which will still have to be paid, they will be earning a
nett negative amount from those lost hours).

The evidence that the drivers are like employees looked pretty formidable to
me. They have almost no discretion over their work for a start, unlike taxi
drivers.

--
Colin Rosenstiel